Beyond openness: use of knowledge and public issues in non-hegemonic contexts

Access and participation on their own are not sufficient to ensure local social use of scientific knowledge. This situation is complicated even further in non-hegemonic contexts such as Latin America.

But if access and openness are not enough, then, what are the other factors to be taken into account? One of the key factors in the different cases analyzed in this project has been the configuration of public issues as both social and cognitive problems.

The frameworks set by scientific knowledge, far from being universal, establish specific relations between the problem in question and the different actors that mobilise it or are excluded from it.

From this perspective, even open processes of knowledge production cannot ensure, themselves, that knowledge will be a priori oriented toward satisfying social needs.

At stake then is the very definition of the “scientific problem” itself, as well as the different instances through which knowledge is transformed, used and implemented.

Participation needs to be fully open at all the stages of knowledge production and use. Addressing this, however, requires acknowledging that it is not only “cognitive” barriers that stand on the way, but also political, cultural, economic, and legal ones.

In our last blog post, we suggested that access and participation, on their own, are not sufficient to ensure local social use of scientific knowledge, and that this situation is complicated even further in non-hegemonic contexts such as Latin America.As a matter of fact, our research suggests that the difficulties in effectively using locally produced knowledge is one of the “hallmarks” of science in developing countries. The process through which obstacles stand in the way of addressing social or development needs via scientific knowledge, has been specifically characterised as “AKNA” –Applicable Knowledge Not Applied (Kreimer & Thomas, 2003). Strong asymmetries in political, economic and symbolic resources account, at least partly, for the contextual difficulties in these regions.In this post, we further address these difficulties, summarizing the data obtained from our project fieldwork over the last year. We have investigated different case studies marked by social issues and controversies about public health, environmental risks, and migratory patterns, all of which expect contributions from scientific knowledge.The questions that guided our research through these case studies were:•How is knowledge actually produced and used, in terms of addressing social problems?•Other than just being open or restricted sets knowledge, what is it that enables stakeholders to effectively using them? Conversely, what hinders the appropriation of knowledge on behalf of the affected stakeholders?•What is the relationship between the way in which the knowledge is produced, on the one hand, and the possibilities of actually using this knowledge, on the other?To anticipate an answer to these questions, we synthesise an example related to our study of drug development for neglected diseases. More specifically, in the case of Chagas disease research, the possibility of developing applicable knowledge, sensitive to local needs, does not only depend on the production of openly accessible data – be it in the form of publications or infrastructure – nor on access to them, but rather on a series of contextual interactions between the political and scientific spheres, and on contingent connections between public health, the affected populations, and the private companies in charge of the development of treatments. In effect, drug discovery in the field of Chagas research relies on open-access genomic and target prioritization databases. However, the path to distributing a drug is slow and intricate: it normally requires negotiating with national governments, adapting the prevailing legislation, implementing reliable clinical trials, and last but not least, making its delivery viable in economic terms. The later set of knowledge is usually produced and held within rather restricted circles of influence, such as global NGO representative, scientific advisors and policymakers.Thus, we consider that the capacity of satisfying demands and needs from stakeholders through scientific knowledge cannot be analysed simply through the rather restricted variables of openness in (and access to) knowledge. Scientific knowledge cannot be considered as “self-standing,” politically neutral blocks of information.

But if access and openness are not enough, then, what are the other factors to be taken into account?One of the key factors in the different cases we analyzed is the configuration of public issues as both social and cognitive problems. Their configuration shapes the problem as something that is “knowable” and, eventually, “contestable” or not. A given “scientific” definition of a problem puts forward certain specific views and solutions as possible, while it excludes others. The frameworks set by scientific knowledge, far from being universal, establish specific relations between the problem in question and the different actors that mobilise it or are excluded from it.From this perspective, even open processes of knowledge production cannot ensure, themselves, that knowledge will be a priori oriented toward satisfying social needs. The same can be said about open access to the products of knowledge in the restricted sense, since, as the Chagas case suggests, there are requirements such as specific competencies that operate as facilitators or barriers for the possibilities of different stakeholders to appropriate scientific knowledge on their behalf.

Therefore, it is not only openness and participation which allow for local social uses of scientific knowledge. At stake is the very definition of the “scientific problem” itself, as well as the different instances through which knowledge is transformed, used and implemented.

Participation needs to be fully open at all the stages of knowledge production and use. Addressing this problem, however, requires acknowledging that it is not only “cognitive” barriers that stand on the way, but also political, cultural, economic, and legal ones.

Caption for photo: Emiliano Martin Valdez with Ezequiel Vanderhoeven and Facundo Robino from Proyecto Yaguareté (Jaguar Project) at the workshop on Open science, participation and social issues.